Blue Super Love and the Dread of New Beginnings

“Do you see the light at the end?”

That phrase, introduced in the title track on Detroit-based indie rocker Ally Evenson’s debut album Blue Super Love, takes on a different meaning depending on which song you’re listening to. The light at the end of a toxic relationship; the light you see as you’re dying; the light that appears when you make it to the other side of your biggest obstacle—whatever it may be, there is nothing as simultaneously comforting and disquieting than knowing you are approaching the end of a significant time in your life.

On Blue Super Love, Evenson spends much of the runtime exploring that idea. While it is mostly done through the lens of a complicated relationship, the opener “Shitty Heaven” sets the album up to be about legacy, identity, and existential dread. As a result, much of the lyrics feel equally as jaded as they do sincere. This framing turns “Cross My Fingers” from being a conversation with your casual hookup to a meditation on the long-term ramifications of one’s present feelings, or “Anything, Anything” from a song about leaving a toxic situation to one about being one step closer to the unknown of a new era.

It also explains “Obituary,” a piano ballad about falling in love with someone based on how they are written about in their obituary. Following through on themes introduced on “Cross My Fingers,” Evenson finds all her emotional needs not being met in her situationship in someone who has passed away and left behind an endowment of love, warmth, and kindness, the things this album often is not. It may be as on-the-nose as dramatic irony gets, but as the centerpiece of the album, it encompasses everything that has been built up to this point and foreshadows events going forward.

It helps that this album is loaded with killer melodies and a consistent sonic palette, almost all of which hearken back to the late-90s alt-rock artists like Alanis Morisette and Sheryl Crow made their bones on. Crow especially is a point of inspiration, right down to the cover of “Everyday is a Winding Road” featured on the deluxe edition released just last month. Some, such as myself, may say that Evenson wearing her influences on her sleeve this boldly makes her music feel a bit unoriginal, but the way she takes these reference points and feeds them through a 2020s experimental indie lens is what makes her stand out at this point in her career. What she doesn’t have in an original voice she makes up for in her unique presentation.

Ultimately, while Evenson’s songwriting can come across as derivative, Blue Super Love shows an artist with a clear vision, a knack for melody, and fearless song ideas. So while it’s not a perfect album and far from groundbreaking, listening creates the feeling that we are currently only seeing the beginnings of a larger, more substantive body of work.

KEY TRACKS:

Where Are You Going?

Cross My Fingers

One Trick Pony

Obituary

Scary/Calm

Do U See Me?